Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/66

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Carew
60
Carew


the west; but as soon as her marriage with Philip of Spain was proposed, he conspired with some of his neighbours against it. The plot was discovered, and he only escaped to the continent just in time to avoid arrest. At Venice he was nearly murdered by bravoes hired by Peter Vannes, the English ambassador, and therefore travelled northward. Passing through Antwerp, Lord Paget had him and his companion, Sir John Cheke, arrested by the sheriff, and sent blindfolded to England in a fishing-boat. His destination was the Tower, where he was confined till December 1556, being released on the payment of some old-standing debt of his grandfather to the crown. The accession of Elizabeth again brought him into favour. In the second year of her reign, when the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Grey de Wilton were commanding an army against the French in Scotland, he was sent on the delicate mission of settling a difference between the two noblemen which was detrimental to the public service; and when the duke was tried and convicted of treason, in 1572, Carew acted as constable of the Tower. But before this latter date (about 1565 or 1566) he showed a quantity of old records to his biographer, Hooker, who on examination was convinced that Carew was entitled to many lands in Ireland which had belonged to his ancestors; and going to Ireland on Carew's behalf, his opinion was confirmed. Carew thereupon obtained leave from the queen to prosecute his title, and sailed from Ilfracombe in August 1568. The remainder of his life, with short exceptions, was spent in recovering what he believed to be his property in Ireland, in which was included a large portion of Munster, which had been granted by Henry II to Robert Fitz-Stephen, whose daughter married a Carew. He began with the lordship of Maston in Meath, which was occupied by Sir Christopher Chyvers. He then obtained a decree of the deputy and council adjudging to him the barony of Odrone in Carlow, which was held by the Kavanaghs, and was appointed captain of Leighlin Castle, which is in the centre of the barony (17 Feb. 1568–9). A few miles north lay the castle of Cloghgrenan, which was held by Sir Edmund Butler, brother of the Earl of Ormonde, having been taken from the Kavanaghs by their father. Butler, it is said, expecting to be dispossessed, made several attempts to attack Carew, but in vain; and the rebellion known as the Butler's wars breaking out shortly after, Carew stormed and took the castle. For this he incurred some blame from the queen, as being partly the cause of the insurrection, and was obliged to return to England to excuse himself, and obtain leave to prosecute his claims in Munster. While in this country the queen was anxious for him to resume the seat in parliament which he had held in the first year of her reign, but he refused. His petition being at length granted, he returned to Ireland (1574), and finding that Lord Courcy, Lord Barry Oge, the O'Mahons, and others were willing to acknowledge his claims and become his tenants, he ordered a house to be prepared at Cork, but was taken ill on his way thither, and died at Ross in Waterford on 27 Nov. 1575. He was buried on 15 Dec. in the church at Waterford, on the south side of the chancel, and his faithful servant and biographer erected a monument to his memory in Exeter Cathedral. There is an engraving of this in Sir John Maclean's ‘Life,’ and also of the well-known portrait at Hampton Court. Neither he nor his brother left any issue. His will, at Somerset House, is dated 4 July 1574, and was proved 20 Feb. 1575.

[We have a detailed contemporary account of Carew's romantic life, written by Richard Hooker, alias Vowell, the uncle of the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, who was in Carew's service for some years. There is an account of this biography in Archæologia, vol. xxviii., and it has been printed by Sir John Maclean, and in the Calendar of the Carew Papers. Sir John Maclean's edition is illustrated with copious notes and appendices of documents and letters. See also Calendar of Irish Papers, vols. 1509–1573, 1574–85; Cal. of Carew MSS. 1515–74; Strype's Eccl. Mem. iii. i. 147, 515, iii. ii. 7; Strype's Annals, i. i. 468; Life of Cheke, 106–8; Foxe, vi. 413–14, viii. 257–607; Fuller's Church Hist. iv. 228; Fuller's Worthies, Devon, 272; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 243, 327, ii. 450; Polwhele's Devonshire, ii. 11, 19; Prince's Worthies of Devon, 199, 204; Leland's Itin. iii. 40; Tuckett's Devonshire Pedigrees.]

C. T. M.

CAREW, RICHARD (1555–1620), poet and antiquary, is the best known member of one of the leading families of Cornwall. His father, Thomas Carew of Antony House, in the parish of East Anton , married Elisabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Edgecumbe, and their eldest son, Richard, was born at Antony House on 17 July 1555. When only eleven years old he became a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, Oxford but his rooms were in Broadgates Hall, and he was probably one of two persons called Carew appearing in a list of the undergraduated resident in that hall about 1570. Here, when a scholar of three years' standing, he was called upon, as he modestly says, 'upon a wrong conceived opinion touching my sufficiency,’ to dispute ‘extempore (impar conqressus Achilli) with the matchless Sir Philip